


A new beginning

by mikhailosbitch



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: GW2017A, M/M, alternate ending of season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 15:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11039058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikhailosbitch/pseuds/mikhailosbitch
Summary: Cleaning up his room, Ian finds something under his bed.It brings back memories.





	A new beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first work ever for a Gallavich week. Unfortunately I didn't know that this week it's Gallavich week until a couple hours ago so here is my piece for day 3, an alternate season 7 ending.  
> I'm sorry for any mistakes, English is not my first language.

The sunlight coming through the shabby window above his bed illuminates the dust swirling in the air, raised by Ian’s hands rummaging in the dark, and apparently very dusty and dirty space between the frame of his small twin bed and the floor.

His fingers grasp a set of paper, torn and ripped. He pulls it out from under the bed and discovers an old porn magazine. According to the numbers at the edge it is nearly six years old.

Although he has done way dirtier things than looking at naked bodies in a magazine even before he had bought this thing he feels a slight blush of shame creeping up his cheeks as he stares at the obscene pictures. It’s less because of the magazine itself but more of the memory that pops up in his head at this discovery. He hadn’t had to pay for this shit since he had been fucking his boss at that time and getting porn for free was one of the advantages that had come along with his secret love affair with his married boss.

Back then he had participated very eagerly in this whole thing and even thought that maybe he was in love.

That was until- No. Ian doesn’t allow himself to finish that thought.

Instead he looks down at the magazine in his hands. The pages are lose, the clips holding them together bent or missing. The thing is a mess as it reminds him of his old days as a mistress.

He had been a happy mistress, not really caring about the family his boss had or the fact that there was an age gap of ten years and he had been a minor.

Thinking back, though, it is fucking embarrassing and disgusting. One of the early things on his long list of regrets.

Ian forces himself not to think about how fast the whole love affair with his boss had become an annoying inconvenience he wanted to get rid off the second he met-.

Or about the fact that the largest part on his list involves one certain person.

 

He has ignored those thoughts for almost two years now. Has moved on.

That’s what he tells himself during the night when he lies awake and pushing the memories and nagging voice in his head away doesn’t work. At night there is no distractions like work or his family and shit and despite repeating _I moved on_ over and over again, the thoughts and dreams come back every night.

 

But now, it is the middle of the day and Ian takes a deep breath. _No. Stop thinking._

 

“Ian!” someone screams from behind and then Ian’s eyes are covered by sticky hands, patting his skin.

“Who am I?” his little brother yells right into his ear and Ian winces at the high as hell volume.

But he decides Liam having a sugar shock and bouncing off the walls is a welcome distraction of the unwanted ghosts lurking in his mind so he lets out a gasp as if he is surprised about the attack.

“Uhhm” he lets out, pretending to be thinking really hard, “Are you Carl?”

“Nooo!” Liam squeals. Holy shit, that kid must have eaten a shitload of sugar. According to the smell of his sticky fingers still above Ian’s eyes he’s had chocolate cake at Sally’s birthday party. Well, that was probably only one thing.

Ian is getting a little tired of his little bro pressing his dirty hands into his face so he says “I know who you are. You’re my cute little shit of a baby brother Liam!”

The sticky hands leave his eyes and Ian quickly shoves the magazine that is still on his lap back under the bed since its content isn’t quite the adequate literature for a first-grader.

He turns around to said first-grader who glares at him, his chin tilted forward and a stern look on his face. He’s pouting.

“I’m not a baby anymore” he states, drawing his brows together, obviously waiting for his big brother to take that back.

“Yeah, I know buddy” Ian assures him, “You’re six years old and a big boy” but he can’t resist to add “You’re still a cute little shit though.”

Liam looks like he wants to argue and opens his mouth to counter but Ian is saved from a face-off with his very stubborn youngest sibling as Fiona’s voice calls “LIIIIAAAM!” from downstairs.

Liam shuts his mouth and Ian can’t help the corners of his mouth tugging upwards as he watches him contemplating whether he should let Ian off the hook.

“Liam, I thought you wanted to watch ‘Ghostbusters’, it is on right now. And leave Ian alone so he can clean up the mess that he calls his part of the room!”

Fiona didn’t really have to add the second sentence since Liam is out the door the second he hears ‘Ghostbusters’ but Ian knows that second part was for him. His big sister has made it pretty clear that she is fed up with the weird smell coming from the boys’ bedroom so she’s making all of them clean up. Even though Lip and Ian switch beds every once in a while, technically the ratty ancient twin bed is still his, same as all the shit surrounding it.

They have cleaned up several times during the last years, Ian still remembers Carl's rage when he discovered that Fiona had thrown all his knives away before her PO had checked the house a couple years ago, but somehow the magazine must have slipped through her searching hands and sat under the bed for years until just now.

Liam is gone so he pulls out the crappy thing again to throw it into the garbage bag next to him on the floor, already filled with old socks, Gatorade bottles and other stuff some of which Ian has no idea of how the hell it got into the room.

As he shuffles the pages out from under his bed he raises up more dust and sneezes.

Opening his eyes again and looking down he sees something lying right next to the tattered edges of the paper.

 

It is his old phone.

 

The black iPhone he stole about three years ago when he had been a manic mess dancing in strip clubs and getting high off his ass.

 

The phone he lost in the hazy days his meds had started to kick in again, when Fiona had finally forced him to take them and the phone she replaced with the new shiny silver thing he owns now so he can call at any time.

He had protested, mainly because of the price and the fact that they couldn’t afford expensive shit like that but his sister had talked him to the ground and stated that she wasn’t giving it back and that he would better take it or she would call his doctor and tell her that he was acting out.

Ian had been pissed as hell but taken the phone.

 

 

But now there is his old one, sitting on the dirty carpet, dark and threatening although it is turned off.

 

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that the thing is silent and the screen is black.

 

He knows it holds a shitload of memories.

Memories he’s desperately been trying to lock away somewhere in the back of his mind during the last two years.

 

Memories he has been running away from because facing them would be too painful.

 

But now a flood comes crashing down above him because this phone contains some of those memories.

Missed calls. Ignored calls. Text messages. A few pictures, taken in the secret hours of dawn or late at night with booze and weed in their veins. They were never the kind of couple to document every move they made and even photo on this phone is a treasure.

 

Ian doesn’t know how long he stares at the phone, five minutes are as possible as five hours.

 

He presses his eyes shut, trying to keep the tears from spilling out that suddenly form in the corners of his eyes.

 

_You moved on_

_Liar_

Eventually Ian moves, not really thinking, his hands just find the charger of Lip’s phone on the small desk next to his bed. Lip’s phone is the same version as Ian’s old one so Ian plugs the charger into the phone and the other end into the plug socket. His fingers are numb, stiff and cold and he keeps fidgeting with his hands in his lap as he waits for the screen to light up. Because in the end it’s not really a question if he turns the damn thing on.

 

The room is silent except for the light sounds of ‘Ghostbusters’ and Fiona rattling pots in the kitchen downstairs. Ian barely hears it.

 

It takes a little while but then the phone vibrates and the white apple appears, announcing that it still works and is about to be ready to be used again soon.

 

He’s fingers are shaking, filled with nervousness and anxiety but they get the name that is the code to unlock it right at the first try. The first tear runs down his cheek, wet and warm, leaving a single salty stain on his skin.

 

The screen shows the familiar sight of his home screen and Ian sees the small amount of apps in their rows, patiently waiting to serve their purpose.

 

His finger hovers over the icon that contains all his texts, his mind blank, trying to prepare him for what is about to come.

After a few seconds of failing to calm down he finally touches the icon and the screen fills with his contacts and the last messages he shared with each one.

 

The first one is Fiona.

 

Then Lip.

 

They are the only two Ian texted after he had turned his back at the gun shots ripping through the air and the sound of two people insulting each other in the worst ways possible, one of the voices being the most beautiful he’s ever heard.

 

Ian’s fingertip taps the third contact.

 

_‘Ian please’_

It’s the bottom of a flood of texts like this, a week-long one-sided conversation, filled with worry and despair.

And the refusal to give up on him.

 

Ian’s sight is blurry. His eyes hot and sticky with tears, dropping to his cheeks and sliding down his face.

 

He scrolls up.

 

Reads every single word they ever sent each other.

 

And it happens. What he knows would happen the second he would allow himself to do anything about the memories eating away at him from the inside of his skull, happens.

It hurts.

 

It hurts so much more than it is already hurting.

 

And it hurts so much less, because he thinks back not only of blurry days, fogged with dull nothingness but also of the smell of Whiskey and cigarettes, and rare and beautiful laughing and pale skin and black hair and luminous blue eyes, looking at him like Ian is the sun.

 

His fingers move faster than his brain can follow, closing the icon and going back to the home screen before opening his camera roll.

 

A small toddler is smiling at him, his toothless mouth laughing silently and familiar eyes staring right into his own. Yevgeny is sitting in his high chair, a small red plate with baby food in front of him but half of the food is smeared around his smiling lips.

A choked sound escapes Ian’s throat.

 

 

He swipes to the next photo.

 

He doesn’t breathe for a while after that.

 

Mickey is laying on his side, his lower half covered by the sheets, skin almost glistening in the semi-darkness. The quality is shit since Ian took the picture in the middle of the night when only the moon was illuminating the room but that doesn’t matter.

His eyes are heavy with sleep, his dark hair a soft mess, lips tugged into a tiny but honest smile as he’s looking at the camera. At Ian.

 

_Fuck_

And as he looks through the small number of pictures of Mickey, or him and Mickey, or even Yev and Mickey or all three of them and one also includes Svetlana, the voice in his head, that he has been trying to shut up for so long now, gets louder and louder, until it screams and shrills, echoing in his skull.

_You fucked up_

_You fucked up_

_You fucked up_

_YOU FUCKED UP_

_YOU FUCKED UP_

_YOU FUCKED UP_

_YOU FUCKED UP_

 

It’s ripping him apart, tearing his heart into pieces, cutting into his soul.

 

‘ _Svetlana paid me’_

_‘My last boyfriend wasn’t much of a talker, his idea of a conversation was to insult me a bunch and then punch me right before we banged’_

_‘The only wedding I’ve ever been to was when my closeted boyfriend had to marry this pregnant hooker that he was forced to fuck at gunpoint so this isn’t so bad’_

_‘This is it. This is you breaking up with me.’ ‘Yeah’_

And at the same time it feels good.

Finally admitting it. Finally allowing himself to feel it. The pain.

Finally not only admitting that he not only missed Mickey, like he had told Mandy, but missing a piece of himself. That part of him is in prison. Rotting away in a cell, alone, with no one visiting.

 

_‘I hate the meds. Will you make me take them?’_

_‘You get fucking nuts when you don’t’_

And now he’s swallowing them every day, has learned to be okay with it.

 

Ian doesn’t know why exactly in that moment but suddenly he remembers.

 

A voicemail. A voicemail he never listened to, at first because he was too busy driving through the country with a kid in the backseat and later because he was caught up in the fog of his pills and then everything went to shit.

 

He presses the home button and then the icon with the little phone.

 

There’re are only a few voicemails and only one that still has a little dot with the notification he hasn’t listened to it yet.

 

He tips at the screen and picks the phone up, holding it against his ear, his heart pumping loudly through his body.

 

_‘Alright shithead, this is like the two hundredth time I’m calling and you’re not picking up I’m starting to get fucking homicidal. Call me the fuck back, Ian._

_I’m worried about you._

_I love you’_

He gasps for air. Desperately tries to get it into his lungs. Breathing heavily, muffled sobs cutting through the dusty silence of the room, although his fist is pressing against his lips.

 

 

Ian thought it would be hard. That letting himself think and remember would come along with hard decisions. Questions he wouldn’t be able to answer.

But in fact it is pretty easy.

 

 

He asks Debbie. About the Sammi incident, what exactly happened, what they had planned and what they had done afterwards.

Because in the back of his mind he has always wondered. About how Mickey could get fifteen years of prison for what he had done.

And he hates himself for it but he was too focused on trying to move on, too focused on throwing himself into the first opportunities of new relationships, too focused on him and only him, too selfish.

 

It is one thing to try to find yourself again and get your life on track.

 

But is a whole other thing to let yourself get paid to see the love of your life who went to prison for you and then throwing it in his face.

 

It’s a whole other thing to not visit after that.

 

It’s a whole other thing to tell lies about the love of your life.

 

It’s a whole other thing to tell a basically stranger about your soulmate being raped and then half-ass smiling about it.

It’s a whole other thing to get involved with whoever is available and to constantly lie to yourself.

 

 

He breaks up with Trevor the same night.

 

He has some money saved. He tells Lip and Fiona his plan.

He has a plan. He is not off his meds, not manic, not depressed. He is heartbroken.

His siblings get that.

Lip uses his connections and gets Ian an appointment with Benjamin Jones. A young top lawyer who actually wants to make a difference and does more pro-bono than all his colleagues together. Yeah, people like this exist.

 

“There’s no guarantee” Jones warns, “but I’ll try my best” he promises. And Ian can see the fire in his eyes. The guy is a shark, worst fear of every judge, according to Lip.

 

Jones digs. Deep. And discovers step by step that the court fucked up. No proper procedure, just lock up. For a crime Mickey didn't commit.

 

 

The neon lights sting in his eyes as he waits. The whole rooms smells like bad breath and cheap soap and dirt, the seats are packed with people of all kinds, mothers with children, old people, guys with cold eyes and scars, girls with piercings and dyed hair.

An eternity later he steps into the visiting booth, sitting down on one of the metal stools, grabbing the phone and pressing the cold black plastic to his ear, hands shaking.

He doesn’t breath again until the door opens.

 

Mickey looks tired. Incredibly tired and Ian’s heart shatters.

Mickey sees him and freezes. Just stands there for a long time before slowly walking to the stool on his side, sliding down and then hesitatingly reaching for the phone.

For a moment Ian thinks that he’s not going to talk to him, that Mickey will just stand up again and leave.

 

But Mickey isn’t Ian. Ian leaves. And Mickey stays.

 

So Mickey takes the phone and holds it to his ear.

 

“Hey Mick.”

 

His voice is weak and quiet but at the same time beyond relieved.

They’re on the phone again.

Ian called again. But this time it is not to break things off.

It is to start a new beginning.

 

“What do you want?”

 

“I’m getting you out of here.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know, it is an open ending and I'm sorry but in this case this is the end of season 7 and Mickey actually getting out would be in season 8 then.  
> As alaways I would love to know what you think of this work and whether you like it or not!


End file.
